The summer took us to New York, Paris and Provence, and a fantastic time was had by all. Provence was clearly the highlight for my children because this of course meant round the clock swimming, uninterrupted ice cream eating, and cuddling furry farm animals. Coming home from a vacation is always difficult, but this trip in particular was really hard to shake. Much to the dissatisfaction of my husband the kids and I tried to come up with various ways to prolong our stay. "Who wants to volunteer to fall down these ancient stone steps and break a bone!?" I half jokingly asked. There were no takers. There was a glimmer of hope when American Airlines texted me a few hours before we were to leave Paris notifying me that our flight was cancelled. They could get us on another flight four days later. I was a little excited at the prospect of spending four more days in Paris, but reality set in and I knew we really needed to get home for work and our pets. We were fortunate enough to hitch a ride the next day with the nice people from Air Tahiti.

Provence offered us the sun, often a hot commodity in San Francisco, fragrant lavender, wonderful outdoor markets, art galleries, cheeses we've never heard of before, and of course, amazing (and inexpensive!) rosé wine for the adults. The best part for me? I no longer needed to make up an excuse to scurry off and take a quick nap in the middle of the day since most shops and businesses shut down for a few hours anyway.

Our time in France took us to the Luberon region in Provence, an area I've been before but had an opportunity to explore a little deeper this time around. There's so much to see and do in Provence, I feel like we didn't really scratch the surface. Hopefully another time...